


Hold Tight, I'm Flying

by luninosity



Series: we walk the sun [5]
Category: Actor RPF, Marvel Cinematic Universe RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Cat/Human Hybrids, Consensual Kink, Dom/sub, Established Relationship, Explicit Sexual Content, Happy Ending, Love, M/M, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Mention of past trauma, Multiple Orgasms, Near Future, Porn with Feelings, Recovery, kitten!seb
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-13
Updated: 2017-06-13
Packaged: 2018-11-13 18:36:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,615
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11190969
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/luninosity/pseuds/luninosity
Summary: They’ve had sex. That’s not the problem. Sex is different now—not entirely, but noticeably—but that’s not the problem either. And Chris doesn’t know what to do.





	Hold Tight, I'm Flying

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Kellyscams](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kellyscams/gifts).



> Three months after the whole ordeal; this one's set after story 4 and before story 2, chronologically speaking, though it doesn't really matter for reading.
> 
> Title from No Small Children's song of that name, because the lyrics seemed to fit the emotion: _afraid but flying / oh, and I’ve done good tonight..._
> 
> As far as we know, there's probably one more story in this series? Or at least we've talked about one more. :-)

They’ve had sex.

That’s not the problem.

Sex is different now—not entirely, but noticeably—but that’s not the problem either.

And Chris doesn’t know what to do.

Sebastian says softly, “It’s going to happen. It’s happening.”

“No.” A cry, a plea, a denial of the truth carried in the closeness of Sebastian’s body, the prickles visible across skin. “We—this isn’t—Seb, _I can’t_ —”

Sebastian’s eyes change. Shutters swinging shut behind pale winter skies. Emotions carefully weighed and set aside in favor of what Chris needs. “I can ask the doctors if there’s anything to be done. Drugs, those suppressants—the hospital, I could check myself in for a week—”

“No!” This cry tears his heart in two. Behind Sebastian the sun’s setting through apartment windows. Fuchsia-gold splashes across evening cityscape. Bleeding like a wound, like broken treasure-chests leaving guts across wet sand. They’re both casually dressed, sweatpants and light t-shirts, ready for an evening of lounging around home. Sebastian’s Rutgers shirt has a loose thread on one sleeve, Chris notices. “No, I’m—you—you’re not gonna go through this alone. You’re _not_.”

He ignores the question of suppressants. Dangerous for his kitten, under the particular unregulated genetic modification circumstances. They’ve had that discussion already. Sebastian notices him ignoring it, and chooses not to push.

“Well, if you can’t, you can’t.” Sebastian’s voice shrugs, though it’s a shrug over glinting fragile glass. Not falling. Not being ripped to shreds because he’s taking Chris at Chris’s word: if Chris can’t do this, they’ll find a solution.

Sebastian, despite joyous enthusiasm for sunshine and new books and decadent flavors in the kitchen, is the practical one. It’s a hard-earned practicality. Laced with needle-sharp threads of experience. Realistic under childlike delight: he’ll dance in puddles in city rain, but will also hold Chris’s hand and come up with feasible landing-spots when the world threatens to dissolve.

“I don’t mean I can’t. I mean—” Chris’s voice wavers. Gives up. Sebastian’s such a shining knight. Brave when Chris collapses. Strong when their partnership needs strength. Dependable and truthful, ears pricked forward, tail curled around his waist, and even those are accepted pieces of reality now. Sebastian meets the universe on equal terms, greets it as a friend, and copes with the parts that hurt.

Even when those parts include his own kidnapping, forced genetic modification, and kitten hybrid state.

Even when those parts include a monthly heat: his body overriding any rational thought, nothing left but the mindless imperative to mate, to be mounted and stuffed full, to be claimed and ridden into climax after climax, insatiable and slick and begging.

The sun inches lower in the sky.

Sebastian doesn’t ask _what did you mean?_ but simply sits with him on their much-loved couch, the one they’ve had for years, before everything and after. Sebastian’s got one knee pulled up and his chin resting on it; the other leg’s stretched out and his foot’s teasing Chris’s hip. They’re not separate. In this together.

Sebastian waits.

Chris tries to finish his own scattered flailing. He’s honest, because he can’t be anything else, when he meets Seb’s gaze and says, “I don’t know how to do this.”

He means the words on at least two levels if not more. Sebastian hears them all, the way those enchanter’s eyes forever do, a scriptwriter who’s built successful worlds through stories; and nods. “Neither do I. So if we need to wait it out, this time—”

“That won’t solve the problem, right? Only put it off.” A month. Another month. They can’t keep living like that.

The cowardly part of Chris’s heart wants to say yes to Seb’s suggestion. Wants to run and hide and not have to handle this: to call his mother, to cry, to curl up in someone else’s arms and let that person make the scary monsters go away.

They’ll only have to do this again next month. Every month from now on.

This is technically Seb’s second heat—when they’d rescued him, when he’d rescued himself, that genetic manipulation’d been ninety-nine percent but not a hundred percent complete, and he hadn’t had the full effect hit yet. That effect had been even more delayed by treatment and trauma and recovery; Seb’s been in and out of hospitals enough that they’d found out about the first time via elevated readings and measurements while already there. Everyone involved—doctors, therapists, Chris, Sebastian himself, who’d been thoroughly not ready—had agreed that letting the physicians handle it, then, would be best.

Sebastian had spent most of the first and the fifth days easily distracted and aroused and extra-tactile, given light testing amounts of drugs. He’d spent the three days between thoroughly sedated. He doesn’t remember much. Chris doesn’t remember much other than sitting by his bedside, holding his hand.

This is maybe thirty percent a lie. He remembers the first shivering shock in Sebastian’s eyes, the small pained whimper, the stark fear and need as his body, still new to him, betrayed itself. He remembers Sebastian crying, _it hurts, Chris, it hurts, I need something, I need, please_ before nurses had come running in.

In the present, Sebastian looks at him more, head on one side, and then smiles—a sudden bright quirk of that expressive mouth—and pounces on him, tackles him, tips them sideways on the couch. Chris yelps mostly out of surprise, flings arms around his kitten, feels Seb’s tail and laughter and nose nuzzling him. They end up lying sideways, face to face, legs tangled and bodies entwined. Sebastian puts arms around him. The lonely scared plaintive pieces of Chris’s soul get a little less lonely and less scared. Sebastian’s holding him.

Guilt lingers in his gut, of course. Half-drunk beer turned to cold lead. He’s Sebastian’s partner. Sebastian’s Dominant. He should be fixing this.

But Seb’s arms are warm and one cat-ear’s soft when it tickles Chris’s face. Seb’s heartbeat’s steady against his. When Chris tries to say—he doesn’t know what, some word, some helpless sound—Sebastian scolds, “Shh, sir, I love you, I’ve got you,” and gets even closer somehow and purrs. That’s warm and steady too.

After a few minutes Chris clears his throat. His voice is scratchy. Damp. “We can handle it.”

“I think we can, yes. But I don’t want you to do anything you don’t feel up to.” Sebastian pauses, ears swiveling: silent amused commentary, the joke he’s not quite making about feeling _up_. Sunset paints his skin in light; he’s a hero out of classic science-fiction, a magical space-opera kitten-adventurer come to dazzle Chris’s life. Screenplays, superheroes, a first date bewilderingly salvaged from disaster, nineties pop music in the kitchen, tuna for breakfast and coffee with extra cream.

Chris loves him. Chris loves him so much. Chris’s chest hurts with love: brilliance that overflows and fills him with reverent wonder. Everything with Sebastian overflows. Everything is more.

“I love you,” he says, because he has to say it. “I love you.”

“Yes.” No hesitation there either. No doubt. They’ve walked through that fire a few times over the last three months: Sebastian frightened and flinching and unsure that Chris will stay, knowing how much this new life asks of a partner; Sebastian pulling back to preemptively minimize the hurt of Chris’s departure, while Chris stood outside shut gates and got hurt by the closing. They’ve worked on it. They’re working on it.

They’re both here to stay.

“Yes,” Sebastian murmurs again, “which is why, if you would rather not—I’m not saying I don’t want you here, I’m not—not doing that again, but honestly I don’t want to make you if you’re not ready. It’s about consent, sir. Yours, I mean.”

The _sir’_ s deliberate. For all his happy clumsiness and enthusiastic tripping over furniture, Sebastian thinks about words. Writer at heart. Lover of language and stories.

“I get it.” Chris sits up, pulls his kitten into his lap. Seb wraps his tail around his waist and purrs more at the manhandling. “I mean I get what you’re asking. And why. But I’m not leaving your side.”

Seb’s smile’s brighter than gold. “I’ll admit I’d rather you didn’t.”

And nothing’ll tear him away. No wild horses, no flash floods or hurricanes, no rain or storm or gloom of futuristic city night. Sebastian wants him.

“Are you…” He doesn’t know how to ask this. He does know that he wants to ask. He’s got a hand resting at the nape of Sebastian’s neck. When their eyes meet the understanding thrums: deeper than words, central as a pulse-beat, a song in rushing quick blood under skin. “How are you? I mean, um, when does it—when do things—the things, you know—what can I do? To be ready?”

“It’s not bad yet—”

 _“Yet?_ You’re already—you’ve already—you didn’t tell me!”

“Oh, only barely. And I _am_ telling you, Chris.” Sebastian makes a face at him. That’s real as well, etched in sundown and familiar as kisses. “I’m fine.”

“Are you?”

“It’s…manageable.” Seb does look a bit pink, now that Chris considers him. Might be the hand on his neck, which is an unfailing submissive shivery weakness. Might be the ease with which Chris scooped him up a minute ago. Might be something more insidious. Done to him, inside him. “It’ll get worse, but right now I’m just sort of…aware. Sensitive. Hot.”

Chris instantly orders the temperature down; their apartment complies. Seb laughs, stretches up to kiss him, sighs. “It’s a bit like being feverish. For the moment. They said—you know what they said. The doctors. My therapists. I won’t be able to think much, after a few hours. I was supposed to—”

He stops. They both wince. The setting sun lingers to pet his ears in sympathy.

“To be a literal sex kitten,” Sebastian finishes, half wry and half resigned, grimly entertained. “Someone’s sex kitten. But I’m yours, Chris. I always am.”

“You are,” Chris tells him firmly, because even when their world’s upside down and eviscerated, that part’s never in doubt. “You’re mine. My good boy.”

Seb’s eyes slip briefly shut. More purring. Good, indeed.

Supposed to be a sex toy, yes. Designed to be. Cat ears, tail, instincts. Heat. Crying heedless desire for penetration, domination, yielding under the onslaught of need.

It’ll happen.

It has, as Seb’s pointed out, already begun.

“Of course,” Sebastian says, smile crooked and glorious and brave, “feel free to make the joke, Chris, we know I can’t think anyway when you’re spanking me, or giving me orders, or telling me I’ve been good, or when you’re kissing me.”

That last one’s a request. Chris obliges. Chris lays his kitten down gently on the sofa and kisses him everyplace: soft open mouth, the delicate spot under his jaw, the column of his throat, the tantalizing line of his collarbone. Sebastian melts sweetly, oh so sweetly, into long-limbed liquid submission, dreamy-eyed as Chris strokes hands over his skin, eases up his shirt, nips at a nipple.

There’s no rush. No hurry. Not yet, not in these moments. Not in these last moments.

The sun meanders further down its path. Night sidles in, friendly as a puppy, welcoming and uncomplicated. At least something is.

Sebastian doesn’t seem to get too much worse. Not for a while, anyway. He’s warm—Chris can feel it under his skin, the thump of blood—and sometimes restless, shifting position, licking lips. Chris lets him squirm in case that helps, tries gathering him up and soothing him with gentle pets and caresses in case _that_ helps, and tells him he’s doing great, he’s such a good boy, he’s Chris’s good boy.

Sebastian loves praise. Gets all bashful and adorably thrilled. Who he is: who he still is, through it all. Who they are.

They nap a little, tangled up in each other, watching Bill Nye’s new show. Sebastian murmurs sleepily, not words, pliant and malleable. Lets Chris cradle him, smooth his hair, guide his head to rest. His tail flicks once and calms.

“I love you,” Chris tells him, grave and low and true, “I love you, you’re so good, kitten, so amazing, letting me help,” and Seb sighs, drifting, afloat on the shallowest waves of subspace.

Chris, drifting as well, notices gradually. Sebastian’s moving. Rocking hips into him. Drowsy and half-awake, languorous as a fabulous opium-tinted nineteenth-century fantasy. “Seb?”

Sebastian lets out a quiet sound, midway between a kitten-coo and an inquisitive human mumble. When he blinks his eyes are huge and dark. “Chris…”

“How’re you doing?” Hand at Seb’s head: support. “What do you need?”

“I’m not…I feel…” With a shiver, quick and full-bodied and followed by a gasp: they’ve pressed together. Bodies. Touching. “I think…I—I need…I don’t know what I need. Something— _oh_.”

“What?”

“I’m…it’s…” Sebastian’s oddly flustered. Eyes distressed. Squirming. “You remember some of—of the, ah, symptoms…”

He mostly remembers Sebastian waking up, drowsy and beautiful, holding his hand. They’d listened to that doctor—one of too many—explaining sex, and the words had washed over him like water on glass, not clinging. Only the important ones’d stuck: Sebastian’s not hurt even worse, Sebastian’s more sensitive and designed to reach climax easily and almost involuntarily, Sebastian’s still human in terms of anatomy.

They’d made his nipples more receptive. More sensory input. True for his cock as well, which is perfectly functional and extra-sensitive too but also smaller—Chris hadn’t quite understood why, but then had, that first morning when Seb’d finally let him see: young and vulnerable and easy to handle, to fondle, and he’d stared at his big hands closing over the shaft as Seb hardened under his ministrations, and he’d hated this new knowledge about himself, hated that he could like this fantasy just as much as a buyer would’ve, even as Sebastian trembled and moaned, awash with arousal and singing nerve-endings.

Chris had gone to lift his hand, sick at heart, his own length iron-stiff in pajama pants. Sebastian’d caught his wrist. Had gazed up at him, huge-eyed, trusting and clear about it.

It’s us, Seb had said then, lying naked beside him, full of morning light and determination. If you don’t mind that I—that I’m different—then neither will I. Not right now. This is us and if we like it then it’s _ours_.

Chris had kissed him then. Chris kisses him now. “Symptoms?”

Seb scrunches up his nose. “I’m…wet. Slick. Opening up.”

“Huh?”

“My body wants to get fucked, Chris.”

“Oh,” Chris says, in what’s as close to a determinedly normal tone as might be possible. “Oh. Um. Okay.”

“I need to go change,” Sebastian mutters, “and—and—I don’t even know. Hide in the shower. In bed. Under a table. I _knew_ you forgot about this one.”

“I’m sorry. I am so sorry. I can…order…something…if you need to sort of wear…” At least the automated grocery and pharmacy delivery service is fast. “What, um…”

“I don’t _know_.” Sebastian moves to get up; Chris scrambles to stand, to be there, to stay at his elbow. Seb takes a step; his tail’s lashing, and he wobbles, off-balance. Chris catches him, there in the center of their living room with the coffee-table and the heated floors, surrounded by evening.

Sebastian, with Chris’s hands on him, says weakly, “Oh fuck,” and his legs give way.

Chris dives to catch him. They end up sliding to the floor.

“Seb! Sebastian—”

Only a moan. Fluttering eyelashes. Seb has such long eyelashes, dark and luscious, beloved outlines for expressive eyes. Chris's chest tightens.

“Christ—Seb, come on, are you—tell me what to do, are you hurt, can you talk to me—”

“Dizzy,” Sebastian whispers. “I’m—I—it aches, Chris, I need…” He shivers. He’s lying cradled in Chris’s arms, panting; his eyes look dazed. His hips shift; his legs shift. One hand slips down between them, and then he’s turning, lips pressed to Chris’s throat, kisses that scorch like desperation. “Chris…”

“Sebastian,” Chris whispers, hands gripping his shoulders. Seb’s eyes try to focus; Seb lets out a little whimper. His hand’s cupping his cock through sweatpants, Chris realizes. Both their breathing’s gone ragged.

Sebastian swears soft and vehement in Romanian. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I can’t think. You feel so good—you smell good and you feel strong and I want—god, I want you inside me, it’s empty, Chris, it feels so—”

“I know. I know, shh, it’s okay, you’ll be okay, you’re doing great.” He steadies Sebastian’s head with a hand. Sebastian whimpers again and nuzzles into his palm. Chris’s body hurts with fear and desire—he’s got his beautiful boy in his lap, squirming and needing him and begging to be fucked, but it’s not right, it’s not—

“Please,” Sebastian moans, “please, Chris,” and Chris would give anything to make this okay, to make his own words true; he’s utterly ashamed of his own racing pulse and swelling cock, which is too aware of Seb’s body moving against him and Seb’s hand moving on his own arousal—

“Please,” Seb says again, and he’s looking at Chris now. His eyes are tinged with pain and huge with need, but they’re coherent. Rain and mist and bewitching lakes, and certainty. “Before I can’t say yes. I’m saying yes. It’s—it’s like doing a scene. Negotiated. Prior consent. Like—” His breath skips. “—like that time ages ago when you pretended to kidnap me, and you blindfolded me and tied me to the bed, because I told you I wanted to play with the fantasy—oh, fuck, _that_ isn’t helping—”

“Like that scene.” That’d been before everything. Before real-life abductions and injuries. “Like—the way you said yes, beforehand, so you could pretend to say no—this isn’t like that, Seb, you didn’t get to choose—”

“I am, though.” Sebastian’s really breathless now. Holding on to rationality with claws and willpower. “I get to choose how we handle this. And I’m saying yes now, I’m saying I want you, and I trust you, and I’m yours, sir, I always am anyway, so please take care of me. I know you can. So yes. Please. Help me.”

“Oh god,” Chris says, despairing, hopeful, giving in or letting go or falling even more in love; and cups Sebastian’s head in both hands and kisses him, trying to say everything, every all-encompassing word in his heart.

Sebastian groans and moves against him; Chris nips gently at his lower lip, and Seb gasps suddenly into the kiss, as his body arches up. Chris pauses. “Did you—?”

Sebastian blinks at him, eyes wide and not quite comprehending. He did come like that, Chris can see it: from the kiss and his own hand rubbing his cock, spilling himself into his sweatpants. He’s trembling from the high.

“Okay,” Chris murmurs, stroking him, bringing him closer, “okay, you’re so good, baby, that’s good, just come if you need to, let it happen, I’ll take care of you, I love you,” and his arms and their apartment and the night all enfold his kitten like secure blankets. Tenderness shivers along his spine. He can do this. He can do this for Sebastian.

He scoops Seb off the floor. Sebastian purrs vaguely and nestles into his arms and nuzzles at Chris’s neck. He seems to like having his mouth occupied. Chris feels another poignant tender stab, like heartbreak, the kind that comes from too much love to contain, bleeding free like rubies, precious and breakable and won as a prize at the end of a long fight.

He takes Sebastian to bed, and strips off that t-shirt and those ruined sweats—they’re wet front and back, Seb hadn’t been exaggerating earlier. His body’s slippery and pliant; Chris can see it, can feel it, between elegant pale thighs, between the curves of his backside. He strokes hands along those inner thighs, fascinated. Sebastian, on his back, whines and wriggles. His tail flicks, and keeps itself out of the way. His pretty little cock’s wet too, having released itself once but still red and stiff.

Chris wonders how many times he can come. They’ve played with that before, on a normal day. In the past.

Sebastian’s eyes are shut, head thrown back. His hips jerk restlessly: Chris isn’t touching where he most needs to be full, where he’s most sensitive. He cries a little; Chris yanks off his own clothes, bends down over him, uses thumbs to swipe tears away. Salt and love on his skin.

He whispers, “It’ll be okay, baby, hang on, I’ve got you, I’m taking good care of you,” and pulls his kitten’s legs up and apart. Seb moves readily, eagerly, yearning.

That hole’s pink and beckoning and slick all over, fluttering with want. Chris can see the pleading in each unthinking motion. Sebastian needs no real prep, though he slides fingers in anyway to learn how this feels, to know, to be sure.

Seb cries more, trying to push himself back on Chris’s hand, not full enough. “Shh,” Chris tells him, “I got you,” and takes the fingers away and replaces them with his cock, one deep hard thrust. Sebastian cries out and comes again as he does: more white splashes land between their bodies, and hot walls clench around him. It feels so good, blindingly good; Seb’s wet and plush and wonderful around Chris’s aching hard length, and Seb wails and writhes and begs with every inch of his lovely body, fucking himself on Chris’s cock as Chris impales him, every damn fantasy come to life—

He can’t help another thrust. Harder. Harder than that. Seb sobs his name. Chris groans and comes like that: his name, Sebastian knowing him, knowing them, even while utterly undone.

They breathe in unison for a moment, foreheads resting together.

Sebastian’s next inhale catches. “Chris—”

Chris nods. It’s not enough. He knows. He can feel Seb’s body under his: rigid with want in the line of his cock, dripping wet between his legs as his hole craves more cock, more presence, more to stuff him to the delirious brim.

He whispers, “I love you.” The artificial illumination’s not on in their bedroom yet, sunset still decorating walls through programmed window-dimmers. The light’s heavy as syrup, as roses, as wine.

Sebastian breathes, “I love you, sir. Chris. I love you,” and gazes up at him, lying beneath him, trusting that Chris can help bring him through this.

Chris melts like the light, at that. Always has, always will, for his Sebastian. “Stay put for a sec. Orders, kitten. Be good.”

Sebastian nods, hazy but seeing him.

Chris slips out of him—Seb exhales but remains in place, being good—and rolls to one side and lunges for some bedroom drawers. A few things. What he’s thought of.

He doesn’t use the cuffs, though those’re lying there too, fleece-lined and leather-wrapped and sturdy. He knows Sebastian hadn’t been handcuffed. He knows that Sebastian might even like them now. He just can’t somehow. Too big. Too much like a lock and a key, a lock that Seb’d had to pick to escape from a kidnapper’s cage.

Cord, instead. Rich and satiny and blue: dark universe-blue, the blue of regal velvet and backdrops for stars.

Sebastian smiles upon seeing it in his hands.

That whole big blue universe tips back toward rightness a hairsbreadth. They’re still them. They’re okay.

He ties Seb’s hands first: above his head, to the headboard. The cords loop down along his forearms, a work of art, dazzling over fair skin. Sebastian sighs, still smiling, head lolling a bit. His cock drips, adding more to the pool of release already decorating his stomach and chest. His body’s a study in contrasts: the floating languor of subspace where Chris is coaxing him, the tremors in hips and thighs as need drives him. When Chris brushes the loose end of a bit of cord over his lips he murmurs, “Yours, Chris.”

“Mine,” Chris agrees, “my good boy,” and kisses him, and tucks the end into his palm. “You want to stop, you feel uncomfortable, you tug this, okay? It’ll open the knots.”

And Sebastian nods again. And then bites his lip, more distress visible. “Sir—”

“Not okay?” He’s already got a hand over blue cord.

“Not that—no, I mean I like it, it feels—I feel safer. Anchored. Here. Please. But…” Seb squirms. A wet spot’s forming on the sheets: his own slickness, a trickle of Chris’s come, leakage from his body. “It’s hurting, Chris, I need to—”

“I know. I know what you need, baby.” He pulls Seb’s legs up again. “So impatient. I was gonna do these too, get you all displayed for me, so I can play with you, but you need me right now, don’t you? You can’t wait? Okay.”

Sebastian’s mouth trembles: not quite crying, relief and humiliation and love.

Chris pushes fingers into him—three, easy as anything, as slickness wraps around him—and Seb shudders blindly, hands tensing in their bonds. “I love you,” Chris repeats, “and it’s fine, thank you for telling me, I want to give you what you need, baby. I might tease you a little about how bad you want it—” He might: coping. “But that’s because you like that too.” He kisses Seb’s knee, adds, “I know you do. Because I _know_ you, Sebastian. My Sebastian.”

Sebastian gasps, and his cock jumps. Chris finds a smile: that’s a familiar reaction. Seb loves knowing that his Dominant knows precisely how to take him apart; thrills to the awareness that someone loves him so well.

He scratches the fingernails of his free hand lightly over the spot he’s just kissed, tender flesh on the inside of Seb’s knee. And then lets the nails bite down, hard, while curling fingers inside.

Sebastian screams his name and comes, head thrown back, body arching; this orgasm goes on for several long seconds and leaves him dazed, quivering, sobbing with reprieve. Chris’s cock stirs. It’s paying attention. And, goddamn, his submissive—his partner, his lover, his other half, the person who makes his soul stronger—is beautiful.

As the aftermath’s receding he tugs Seb’s limp legs into place and gets them tied too: up and spread and linked to his arms, so he’s nearly folded in two, exposed hole and needy cock and come-splashed body on display. When Chris cups his cock, fondles it, squeezes lightly, more fluid spills out, a long slow drop that shines as it falls. Sebastian’s breathing in half-conscious cracked pants, twitching, eyes half shut.

Prior consent, Seb’d said. What they need. What he might need, if he can’t think. Chris whispers, “Still with me?” and gets a moan. Seb’s hips move: pushing that lovely wet cock into his grip, and then again.

And the touch, the feel of him, the sight of him, the scent of him: that swings around and hits below the belt, straight home into Dominant instincts and partner-instincts and need. He’s always wanted to take care of his sweet boy. He’s always wanted to take his sweet boy apart, with love, and bear amazed witness to such utter surrender: the humbling headrush of reaffirmation, of how deeply Sebastian trusts him, of the honor of being chosen as the man Seb does trust. With himself, with his heart, with everything.

Chris’s cock, which is also a romantic, is up again and ready.

When he fucks Sebastian this time it’s different: wetter, messier, but needier too, as Seb dissolves into pure instinct under him, knowing nothing but Chris’s cock pounding away and Chris’s hands on his body. Chris, having come once, manages to hold out for a while—he loses track of time—and makes his thrusts harder, deeper, indelible; Sebastian comes at least twice while being fucked that way, bound and claimed, one of Chris’s hands rubbing his cock, which must be agonizingly sensitive by now. Seb doesn’t notice or doesn’t care, simply rocking himself into the weight of the hand.

The third time Sebastian nears climax, mouth open, eyes closed, making mindless tiny sounds, Chris bends down to kiss him, drinking in the next small cry. Seb stiffens under him, clenches around him, and Chris comes too, licking the taste of ecstasy from that luscious mouth, drowning in sweetness.

Sebastian’s barely awake as he pulls out. A ribbon of wetness follows; Seb’s hole’s been stretched and used and opened, and muscle quivers vainly. Thighs quiver too; Chris undoes various cords, and his kitten collapses against him, quiet. Chris strokes his hip. The lights’ve come on sometime in the past few minutes; he didn’t notice, but they spread a blanket of cozy topaz over the bedroom.

“Seb,” he asks, nosing at dark exhausted hair. “Sebastian?”

Sebastian whimpers. Chris wraps arms around him. “I’m here.”

“Sir…”

“Right here. I’ve got you.”

“So good,” Seb whispers, “Chris…but it’s not, I can feel, it’ll come back…”

“Rest. For a minute.” He cradles Seb’s head against his shoulder. “Rest.”

“Yours,” Sebastian says, falling into momentary sleep. His body’s mercifully fleetingly lax, sated; even his tail’s limp. It won’t last, Chris knows. The doctors’ve said. Seb’s cock, half-hard against his, says so.

Sebastian manages to nap for nearly fifteen minutes, tucked safely into Chris’s arms. Chris wants to do a lot of things—change the sheets, grab water, grab food—but can’t move. He’s being a shield. A safe place.

Sebastian wakes up shivering and confused: not by Chris precisely, but not entirely aware of his surroundings. His hips move; his whole body moves, a long involuntary roll. He makes a sound, not one Chris has heard from him, one that’s feline and howling. When Chris moves to pet him he whines and rolls to his stomach, lifting hips.

Oh, Chris thinks, less a thought than another body-blow. Oh. Cats. Heat.

Sebastian squirms. Rocks hips into the mattress. Into the wet spot; but when Chris goes to touch him he hisses. And then instantly flattens himself into the bed. “Sir—I’m—Chris—I didn’t, I don’t know, oh, Chris, I need—have to—feels—”

The disjointed words turn into another cry. Seb’s rubbing himself into the bed again, as if he can’t not, as if craving stimulation. He jerks once and spasms and his hole twitches, sending a fresh pulse of slick down his thighs; he’s come like that, Chris thinks, fucking the bed, getting off in his own wetness from earlier, offering his hips upward. And that shouldn’t be a turn-on, shouldn’t be—but it is, it’s filthy and indescribably gorgeous, Sebastian abandoned to rationality and climaxing helplessly as his body demands it…

Christ. He falls to his knees on the bed, yanks Seb’s hips back, slams into him. Seb makes that high desperate sound again and comes again or more, cock untouched and spurting over the disaster of their sheets. Chris fucks him through it, hitting that spot inside him. Seb’s sobbing and keening and making sounds Chris has never heard before, animal and instinctive; Chris bends over him, covers him, presses him down with the weight of a dominant mate. Sebastian writhes under him, maybe another or a continuous blissed-out orgasm, maybe only responding. Chris kisses his shoulder, the spot at the back of his neck; Chris sets teeth into his skin, because Seb likes—had liked, once—being bitten and spanked and marked, tangible proof of belonging.

This time feels different. Like, yes, instinct. In his bones. In his soul.

Sebastian shudders in rapture beneath him, moving ceaselessly, at sea amid sensation. His claws are out and digging frantic holes in the mattress, a sight which shouldn’t go straight to Chris’s gut like a scorching beacon of arousal but somehow does. His body tightens around Chris’s cock, buried to the hilt; Chris groans, feels his body hurtling toward the peak, pins Seb more closely under him—

He comes, or they come, or there’s no difference. The world hangs splendid and white as shattering diamonds, suspended at the breaking point.

He slips out gingerly, astonished at himself, muscles tremulous as if he’s run a race. His cock rubs across Sebastian’s backside, the crease where curves meet thigh. It leaves a sticky trail.

Sebastian makes a small sound but doesn’t stir, limp in submission or exhaustion. He’s painted in evidence of what they’ve done: sweat, his own slickness, dribbles of Chris’s come leaking from his stretched pink hole, the mark of Chris’s mouth on his skin. Chris, suddenly afraid, touches him, eases him to his back; Seb lands where Chris puts him, limbs falling slack, mouth slack and wet too, eyes open a slit. Chris shivers between amazement and love and terror at what they’ve done.

“Sebastian,” he whispers. “Kitten?”

Seb doesn’t react. Chris swallows hard. “Sebastian, can you—if you can hear me, it’d be kinda nice to know you’re, y’know…” What? Present? Still consenting? Alive?

He knows how Seb feels about being touched unexpectedly. He knows those reactions are more deep-seated than a conscious response, part feline mentality and part rooted in trauma.

He knows how scared he is, and how much he needs to touch his sweet submissive right now, his center.

He touches fingers to Seb’s cheek. No response. He gulps down black lumps in his throat, and cups Seb’s face, rubs a thumb over one cheekbone, tests that pulse. “Sebastian…”

Seb gasps, jerks up and back with a hiss, and then gasps again. “Chris—”

“Sorry, sorry, I’m so sorry—”

“No, no, I—did I hurt you, or—”

“Nah, you didn’t even take a swipe at me this time.” He’s had more than a few cat-wounds. They’re handling that, too. Together. “Don’t worry, kid.”

The return of this old nickname—the sweetest kid on the planet, Chris had said once in a press interview, when the minor news story of the new-but-critically-acclaimed director and the genius scriptwriter had gotten a few mentions—earns a tentative smile. “Still yours…I’m too tired to put claws in you. I don’t think I can move.”

“Always mine. That doesn’t maybe mean we’re done, right?” He holds out arms; Seb crawls over and curls into them, head on his chest. Tufts of their mattress float around them: sacrificial snowfall prompted by claws. The mattress doesn’t mind. It loves Seb too. “How’re you feeling?”

“I’m even more tired.” Seb yawns, tucks his head under Chris’s chin. “That was good. That felt right. But no, we’re not done. I’m sorry, Chris.”

“No,” Chris says, brushing fingers over his neck: over the bite-mark, pinkness, command. “Nah. No being sorry. Not your fault. I’ll make it an order if you want.”

That’s more or less half a joke; Sebastian hears both halves, and kisses his chest. Lips above his heart. “Thank you, sir. How’re you?”

“Also kinda tired,” Chris admits, and they both laugh. “But don’t worry about me. I got this.”

“Three days of this.”

“I got _you_. I can be inventive. Only three? I thought—”

“Between three and five, they said.” Seb’s ear flicks against his chin. “The middle few days will be the worst. It depends on me, to some extent; stress, hormones, physical comfort, and so on. It’ll ease off. Like last time.”

“Last time you were pretty out of it. Physical comfort?” He wraps arms around his kitten. “Like your body knows when to conserve resources or something? When you feel safe, or not?”

“Cats are good at adapting.” Sebastian shrugs without moving. “But I’m younger. A kitten. Sort of. Designer. So it will likely always be fairly intense. I’m—”

Chris kisses the top of his head. “Don’t say it. And also, hey, I kind of like that part, anyway. My designer kitten. Rare. Special. Only mine.”

“I wasn’t. You told me not to be sorry for it, and I’m trying.” Seb adjusts position to kiss him, to consider him. “I am trying. It helps that you seem to be liking me like this. I meant, I’m not sure what we’ll do if we’re ever apart.”

Too many emotions in those statements. Too much to unravel. Chris bites his lip against an arrow flung by casual words, and bleeds invisibly. “If we’re apart…we don’t have to be. I’ll be with you.”

“You can’t give up your career, and I don’t want to lose mine.” The bed’s reassuringly tangible around them. The eye of a hurricane. Lamplight falling over dark hair and kitten-ears like a crown of ivy-woven gold. “I don’t want us to have lost that. We both love who we are. And I know you’ll stay with me as much as you can, but someday it’ll happen. You’ll have to direct a unit on location and I’ll have a meeting with Marvel creative directors that I can’t reschedule, or a table read I can’t miss because it’s the first time I can hear my script with the actors giving it voice, or something. You know there _will_ be a day. Someday.”

“Someday,” Chris says, reaching out to feel his hair, the light, the softness of his cheek. Not even scars where whiskers’d been removed. “Yeah. Not now. I’m not saying I’m not worried about it.” He is. “We’ll figure it out.”

He’s learned that, in the years of loving Sebastian. His own anxiety runs in less frantic _what if_ circles around that generous optimism. When Chris overthinks and frets and fusses, Sebastian believes that the world isn’t perfect or fair but can get better, and they can do something to make it better, and if there’s a problem they’ll look at it from all angles and bat it around with determined paws until they knock it into shape.

Sebastian’s his serenity. His certainty.

He’s that for Seb too, he’s figured out. Seb’s anxiety is less future-oriented and tight-strung than Chris’s, but more personal and deeply painful. Sebastian will promptly tackle the world and make it go right on someone else’s behalf, but needs an anchor, reassurance of belonging, of being loved, of being good enough, of being good. And Chris, who loves him, will never tire of telling him so.

They fill in each other’s lonely places. That hasn’t changed. Never will.

Sebastian smiles at him, across then and now: the memory of a first date and the weight of Chris’s hand at the nape of his neck.

“I love you,” Chris says. “I love you.”

“And I love you.” Seb yawns a third time, swiping a hand over face and ears: kittenish, worn out, adorably ridiculously himself. “I really am so tired…and sticky…”

“Don’t move, okay?”

“What—” The word becomes a surprised feline squeak as Chris scoops him up. Chris laughs. Sebastian grumbles, “Don’t think that isn’t a turn-on, sir, for so many reasons…” and Chris laughs more.

Sebastian’s making jokes. They _are_ good. They’re spectacular.

He carries Seb off to the guest bedroom, announces, “Clean bed, round two,” and flops down beside him. “Want water? Food? Anything? How bad is it?”

“Ah…getting worse.” Sebastian, spread out against the sunny blue-and-white plaid of their guest sheets, looks both utterly incongruous—disheveled, debauched, wanton—and thoroughly at home in the way of smug house-panthers. He props himself up on both elbows; his cock’s fat against his thigh, swelling. “I don’t know. Water might be good.”

“I want you to eat.” Via text, he’s ordering the cleaning bots to handle their bed, in the other room. Fresh sheets, a bit of mattress repair, nothing Seb’ll feel guilty about later. “I’m gonna grab water, I’ll be right back, okay?”

Seb nods. Chris jumps to both feet, naked and weary but energized—he’s doing this for the man he loves—and bolts for the kitchen.

Under overhead lights, one hand on the counter, he has to stop and breathe. Enormity. Earth settling into a new rotation, a spin in which this is normal, this is a thing they do. Him and Sebastian.

The water bottle drips condensation onto his hand. Cold and bright, it tells him that he’s doing fine. He’s doing this. He’s taking care of Sebastian.

He grabs a few items from their bedroom too, nearly tripping over a busy cleaning bot, and runs back.

Sebastian’s curled up on his side, eyes on the door, hands between his legs; he’s plainly come already, been playing with himself, been seeking relief. There’s a new white splash over his stomach, over the sheets.

“Hey,” Chris says, caught off-guard all over again, caught like the first time ever by the sight of him, caught and forgetting to keep walking.

Sebastian blinks. “Did you knock over something in the hallway?”

“The bot’s fine and my foot’s fine, thanks for asking.” He hops onto the bed. Runs a hand over Seb’s hip. Seb whimpers, and his tail lashes. “Worse, huh?”

“Yes…”

“But I’m here. I’m taking care of you. Come here.” He pulls Seb into his lap, face-up, sitting with his back to the headboard. It’s not their usual room, and in an odd way that’s exciting: sex in the guest space, in a new bed, like this new realm. “Drink.”

Sebastian takes a sip obediently as Chris holds the bottle to his lips; they both pause for a second as that happens. Newly intimate. Handheld sips. Sebastian drinking water as Chris gives it to him.

Seb shivers in his lap and seems to soften: floating, melting, pooling into languid liquid limbs and sweetness. Chris feeds him some trail mix, nuts and fruit and chocolate sweetness. Chris pets his cheek while giving him another sip from the bottle. Sebastian drinks. Sebastian’s cock dribbles clear fluid onto his stomach. Sebastian’s backside and thighs are growing slick too, as he lies in Chris’s lap.

Chris takes the water away, strokes a hand over his cock, makes Seb moan. More fluid spills free, ready. “Spread your legs, baby.”

Sebastian does, dreamily. Chris picks up the vibrator—the big one—and shoves it into him: one hard push.

Sebastian’s head falls back in a silent cry, and he comes. Climax splashes his body and Chris’s chest, and drenches the sheets beneath them.

Chris flips the vibrator on this time. Hand back on Seb’s twitching cock. Not stopping.

Sebastian comes and comes, shuddering, convulsing, helpless with it. Chris fucks him with the vibe, with fingers on his dick, on his nipples, in his mouth; Chris makes him come while feeding him sips of water, cared for and securely supported and drinking what he’s given. Sebastian’s eyes are unfocused, drowned by ecstasy.

Chris makes him finish the water, and then lays him down and kisses him all over; Sebastian makes little keening noises and clenches around the vibrator, coming nearly dry, cock softer but giving up its last remnants bit by bit. Chris slides down and licks him up, tasting him; Sebastian cries out, tender and anguished, and Chris tastes each drop on his tongue.

He’s kind of amazed at himself. This is so wrong, in a way: Sebastian’s teetering on overwhelmed— _is_ overwhelmed, really, lost to coherent thought—and now’s not the time to explore him, to toy with him…

But it’s exactly that time. Sebastian consented beforehand. Sebastian needs relief. Chris needs to know how his body reacts. Chris needs to make this good for him. And Sebastian told him it helped, knowing Chris likes this, likes him.

That’s complicated too. _Chris_ isn’t sure Chris likes this, not on a conscious level. Pretty dubious. But, god—Sebastian, like this, having told him yes, trusting him so profoundly, and so deliciously abandoned to arousal…

He runs a finger around the rim of Seb’s hole, where the base of the vibrator rests inside him.

He gazes at Sebastian’s face: half-shut eyes, bliss-parted lips, tiny tremors running through him over and over.

He slips the vibrator out, and kisses Seb’s cock one more time, and then lower: nuzzling, tasting, discovering.

Sebastian cries out weakly at the first experimental stroke of tongue. Chris holds his hips, holds him down. More slickness rises; Chris tastes him, learning this as well. Sebastian’s hole’s full and leaking: Chris’s own come, not unpleasant, and this new natural—if implanted—response to desire.

Sebastian tastes sweet here too, almost like vanilla, with some darker spice. He wonders fleetingly if that’s deliberate, genetic programming; but that doesn’t matter, not here and now. It simply is, regardless of how and why: Sebastian’s his sweet boy, and he likes it.

Sebastian writhes. Whines. Sobs. Chris soothes him, licks into him, holds his legs apart. Knows the scrape of beard must sizzle over sensitive nerve endings, the stretched edges of that pink opening. When he plunges his tongue deeper Sebastian screams, whole body tensing, and then collapses.

Chris sits up, and looks at him. Seb’s chest’s going up and down, and he’s come again, unconscious now from the force of it, lying with legs spread and the burn of Chris’s beard over his hole. Chris’s face is wet.

He strokes dark hair out of Sebastian’s shut eyes. He holds Seb close, burying any tears in the curl of that hair on his face, out of sight.

Sebastian wakes up just enough to see him. Chris touches his lips; Seb parts them and mouths at Chris’s finger. It’s late. Nearly two in the morning, by now. “Hey.” So much feeling. So much, and such small words. Their guest bed nestles benevolently around the scene, protecting fragile bodies with stalwart plaid cotton. “I love you.”

Sebastian’s smile appears like a weary ghost: summoned by love.

“I’m gonna order pizza,” Chris says, and Sebastian almost manages a laugh.

Pizza arrives. Chris goes to answer the door, wrapped in a sheet; at least delivery’s automated too, and he’s not facing a person. They eat, Seb supported by strong arms, looking marginally more awake.

Chris gets them into the shower after that. Sebastian can’t stand up well, and Chris isn’t much better, but he makes himself into firm upright sturdiness. For Seb. For them.

When they get out, water-flushed and cleansed, Seb’s hair standing up in marvelous waves, the master bedroom’s clean too. Chris brings the rest of the pizza and his kitten, and they sleep, on and off, and relieve Seb’s tension as it builds, on and off, not quite as bad as before.

He wakes once to find Seb crying a little, rubbing against him, in distress. He rolls them over, fucks Sebastian with cock and fingers—separately, in combination, both—until some of the distress fades. Sebastian’s mostly not talking now, spacey, high on hormones and genetic imperatives, but he kisses back when Chris kisses him.

Day two passes in a haze of sex and tangled limbs and toys. Heavy plugs. Clamps. Dildos. Ice, both for thrilling sensation and in an attempt to cool Sebastian’s heated body. Chris’s hands, mouth, cock, everything he’s got to give. His phone rings a few times. His mother, his brother, Anthony Mackie, other friends: checking in, because no one’s heard from them in a while.

Chris texts back with varying degrees of explanation depending on the person, and gets back to Seb. Who surfaces enough to murmur, “…phone?”

“Mackie, that time. He’s worried about you.” He kisses Seb’s sweat-damp forehead, under curling hair. Sebastian’s got one of their dildos, the kind that can grow in size, inside him, and is rocking back and forth on it, small motions. “Told him you were doing better than I am.”

“Am I?” Sebastian licks lips: tired, scared, hopeful. “Am I…I’m yours, Chris…”

“Mine. So good for me.” He puts a hand on the dildo, takes over the motion. “You said it felt better knowing I liked it.”

Sebastian nods, fuzzy but watching him.

“I do,” Chris admits, honest as the glint of sunlight through darkened windowpanes, as the circle his other hand makes around Seb’s wrist, as a ring of gold. “I mean, I kinda don’t—I wish, you know what I wish—but you told me yes. You told me I could help. And I am. I mean I think I am. I am, right?”

And Sebastian lets out a breath of a laugh, evanescent and fond, and nods again. Emphatically.

“Good,” Chris says, “we’re good,” and kisses him.

They get through day two. They get through day three. Sebastian’s wholly out of it by then, alternately crying when not filled up enough or relieved enough, and sobbing and hissing and even growling at overstimulation. He actually growls once at Chris, writhing in place on the bed, thrashing in mindless frustration. Chris says, half heartbroken and half abruptly instinctively fucking _dominant_ , “ _No_ , Seb, I’m trying to help you, be _good_ ,” and pins him down hard.

Sebastian wails, feral and eerie, and shudders with orgasm. Chris pounds into him, bends him in half; Sebastian’s claws pop out and scratch at his hands, being restrained. Chris tells him, “Mine,” and sets teeth into his shoulder, a reminder, enough to hurt; Sebastian shrieks and goes rigid and then goes limp, eyes wide and unseeing, body rhythmically pulsing with release. Chris kisses the bite-mark and comes too, white-hot and poignant as a comet, a bolt of light in the dark.

Sebastian sleeps for an hour after that one, knocked out as cleanly as if by a blow. Chris steals brief naps and worries over him. Sebastian awakens disoriented and craving; Chris makes him eat, drink, and rest, hurried snatches of time.

Near the end of that day, both of them worn thin, bruised and surviving, held together by love, he slides his spent cock out of Seb’s clenching body. Slides fingers in. Slides his hand in: pushing deeper. Wider.

He’s wanted to do this before. They’d never quite got there. Not before the scorching meteor that’d split life in two: before and after.

This is after, and maybe they can recapture some of that before. Or not _re_ capture: instead, gain something they’ve not yet done.

He whispers, “Sebastian.” Pale eyes open halfway, and realize abruptly.

“Can I,” Chris asks, and Seb breathes, “Please, Chris.”

So Chris works the hand into him: a fist, a whole fist, almost easy now that Seb’s so loose and wet and well-used. Seb’s body takes him in, closes around him. Sebastian’s breath comes slow and shuddery, long exhales and inhales, faraway.

Chris pulls back a bit, repositions, pushes in again. His fist, Sebastian’s flexible body, opening up—taking it, so wide and so deep…

Sebastian’s coming, he notices. A drawn-out near-silent orgasm, an open-mouthed spill of liquid from his cock, release milked from deep within his body.

God. They’ll do this again. They’ll have to. He twists his hand, moves, thrusts: fisting Sebastian. Sebastian’s face is wet; Sebastian’s cock’s wet and hot, and Chris takes it in his other hand, marveling at the soft small spent sweetness of it. Sebastian’s really crying now, or maybe gulping for breath, tiny sounds that hover around hysterical sensory overload; Chris kisses him and Sebastian chokes on an inhale and his cock twitches in Chris’s grip and his body ripples around Chris’s hand.

Chris pulls his hand out carefully, so carefully, watching. Sebastian’s body can’t quite close up; slickness leaks from him, over the bed, over bare skin. Chris, long since spent himself, wants to come at the sight; he stretches out atop his kitten, rocks their bodies together, presses more kisses into Seb’s open mouth. A sensation like an orgasm, distant and rolling as a wave, builds and billows from inside him, from his toes to his spine to his lips over Seb’s; he groans with it, as it sweeps through his body.

He holds Sebastian close. They rest.

On day four Sebastian’s the first one awake. Chris jerks out of sleep, heart thumping with fear, face pressed into Seb’s stomach; Sebastian smiles, one hand ruffling Chris’s hair. “Hi, sir.” His voice sounds ragged, but also velvety as sunshine, beckoning as clean fur.

“Hey—I didn’t mean to—are you okay? How’re you feeling?” He’s been asleep for—oh god, three hours, he left Sebastian alone—

“Better.” Enervated, too thin, but honest; Sebastian’s framed by cotton-blue pillows, airy as a summer sky. The morning’s light and undemanding as spun sugar, an innocent whipped-cream kind of day, naked skin and truthfulness. “Not done, but better. Less…smothered by it. I can handle some of it; I did, while you were asleep.”

Chris looks: yes, Seb’s playing with himself with a smaller vibe, the silly bright orange one that he’d fallen in thoroughgoing love with for the color and the speed; he’s clearly gotten off once or twice recently from visible evidence, but he’s awake and talking.

Awake. Talking. Chris gazes at him, entranced.

“I might even be able to work,” Sebastian ventures. “At least check email…”

“Nah,” Chris suggests, heart suddenly absurdly light, radiant with triumph and devotion and overprotectiveness, “not today, anyway, you’ve got a good excuse. Maybe tomorrow. Maybe I’ll let you tomorrow.”

“ _Let_ me.” Sebastian’s expression’s complicated: amused, frayed as the end of a thread, full of love and regret. Chris wants more than anything to banish the latter. “I don’t—you’ve done so much already. You can—you should rest. You don’t need to keep on taking care of me.”

“I like taking care of you,” Chris tells him, kissing his stomach, scooting up to capture a delicate wrist. The wrist has a hint of bruising. Bondage and firm hands, holding him down, holding onto him. “Didn’t you hear me?”

“But I…” Seb looks at their hands too. Not at his own bruises. At scratch-marks, claw-marks, along Chris’s skin. “Did I…I remember…bits. Pieces. I hurt you. I—I _hurt_ you. Chris—”

“Nothing worse than usual.” But pain flashes across those eyes: the wrong words. He swears at himself. Clumsy. “Not usual. Not—I mean it’s been worse. Like early on, or if I scare you.” Still not right; Sebastian’s near tears, plainly thinking about how red some of these marks are and blaming himself for _worse_. “God, no. I’m doing this all wrong. I love you, Seb.”

Sebastian flinches. But Chris catches his chin, lifts it. Searching that gaze; his heart finds words reflected there. “I don’t give a damn if you scratch me. It’s not bad—really, it’s not, look—” He even pokes one of them. Seb makes a desperate sound, but drinks in every word, looking up at him. “And I’d rather it be this. Than, um, than you being scared. I’d rather you feel—you did say yes. And—and I think, I hope, this was helping. Making you feel good. I’d rather you scratch me because you feel really good?”

Sebastian’s mouth quirks. A wobbly upward turn.

“Tell me if I ever start making sense,” Chris offers.

“You are.” Sebastian swallows. “You’re perfect. Chris—thank you, thank you, I love you, yes. We’re—”

“We’re okay,” Chris says. “We’re okay.”

“I could ask for the suppressants,” Sebastian says, not directly an answer in either direction. “I was thinking, while you were asleep…but you know why that’s tricky.”

Suppressants are, yeah, a possibility—hybrids sometimes need them, even if doing gen mod for play, while learning to cope—but, as he'd thought earlier, as they both have been made aware, Sebastian’s a special case. Unregulated cocktails. Unapproved drugs and manipulation. That illegal trafficking ring. Nobody knows exactly how some of those trace oddities might react.

His chest hurts. Sebastian’s been thinking about that. Has felt guilty enough, scared enough, to consider the option. Despite that lack of knowledge. “You know how I feel. But—but if you think…it’s your body, and if this isn’t—if you’d rather not do this again…”

“I don’t want to hurt you.” Sebastian sighs. “But that’s back to where we started, and you’ll say you don’t want me getting hurt, and I’ll admit I do feel better handling this at home with you, and you’ll say again that we’re okay…”

“You tell me,” Chris teases gently, “when you want me to jump into this conversation, I’ll just follow your lead, kid.”

“Are we,” Sebastian says, one hand reaching out to touch Chris’s arm anew, the worst of the scratches. “Are we okay?”

“Yeah.” Three pieces of cold pizza sit in a box atop the nightstand. The floor’s got sex toys and stained satin ropes and kicked-off blankets heaped upon it. The cleaning bot’s hovering outside the door.

And Sebastian’s skimming fingers over his skin, and the morning’s wandering toward afternoon, bathed in gold; Sebastian’s beginning to smile more.

“We are,” Chris says. “We can do this. Every month. We’re doing this.”

“So, then. I suppose we are.” Seb shifts weight, catches breath: vibrator purring inside him. His ears swivel forward. He’s starting to purr too, low and happy. “Every month. We can do this. We’re not done yet, this month.”

“Getting better,” Chris points out, folding his hand over Seb’s, draping a leg over him, brushing his lips with a thumb. “And was that an invitation? I’m here if it was. Or if you want me to feed you the rest of the pizza.”

“Both,” Sebastian says, laughing against him, under him, “both, Chris, feed me pizza and fuck me until I can’t see straight, and maybe tomorrow we’ll be even better, and the day after that will be better, and you can do that thing with your hand again when I’m more awake, please, and yes, everything, yes, I love you.”

“I love you,” Chris says one more time, lunging for pizza through sunlight, keeping as much of himself as he can atop Seb in bed, imagining tomorrows and tomorrows, getting better and better at _everything_ , “and fuck yeah we can.”


End file.
